Post by GaryLatest from the BBC
http://youtu.be/91KCe32Nzvw
"Latin America's most significant protection from future shocks (and therefore
from the shock doctrine) flows from the continent's emerging independence from
Washington's financial institutions, the result of greater integration among
regional governments. The Bolivian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) is the
continent's retort to the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the now buried
corporatist dream of a free-trade zone stretching from Alaska to Tierra del
Fuego. Though ALBA is still in its earl stages, Emir Sader, the Brazilian-based
sociologist, describes its promise as "a perfect example of genuinely fair
trade: each country provides what it is best placed to produce, in return for
what it most needs, independent of global market prices." So Bolivia provides
gas at stable discounted prices; Venezuela offers heavily subsidized oil to
poorer countries and shares expertise in developing reserves; and Cuba sends
thousands of doctors to deliver free health care all over the continent, while
training students from other countries at its medical schools. This is a very
different model from the kind of academic exchange that began at the University
of Chicago in the mid-fifties, when Latin American students learned a single
rigid ideology and were sent home to impose it with uniformity across the
continent. The major benefit of ALBA is essentially a barter system, in which
countries decide for themselves what any given commodity is worth, rather than
letting traders in New York, Chicago or London set the prices for them. That
makes trade far less vulnerable to the kind of sudden price fluctuations that
devastated Latin American economies in the recent past. Surrounded by turbulent
financial waters, Latin America is creating a zone of relative economic calm and
predictability, a feat presumed impossible in the globalization era." - Naomi
Klein
There was (I think) a refinery on the shore at Havana - at least there was a
stack and burning gas perpetually. The whole old-town reeked of gas fumes
everywhere. Oil was
imported from Chavez/Venezuela.